Sculptify David makes 3D printing more affordable

3D printing has been big news for a while now, but – with one or two exceptions – it's remained a very expensive process. That's where David comes in.

It's made by a company called Sculptify, and aims to make 3D printing much more affordable. How? It uses pellets instead of traditional strands of filament.

Think of it in terms of cars. If regular 3D printers are like normal cars, and filament is like petrol, then David is like a Tesla, and pellets are like electricity.

Not only are pellets cheaper, Sculptify claims they're more versatile too. "Every plastic product, even filament, starts out in pellet form," it says on the Kickstarter page. "Because of this, raw pellets are readily available in thousands of different materials, colours, and grades.

"By printing directly with plastic pellets, David can print with many more materials than traditional 3D printers – making him more useful to many more people and industries."

You don't have to buy pellets made by Sculptify either, so you're not locked to one brand. It'll take any of the same kind, available from any number of 3D printing websites. So it's up to you where you buy them from.

The downside is that David itself doesn't come cheap. It costs $3,195 (£1,917), though the relatively low price of the pellets should help you save in the long run.

It's already raised more than a quarter of its $100,000 funding target. You can back it yourself for just $1.